Located in Vancouver’s inner city neighbourhood of Strathcona, RayCam has provided essential services and supports to children, youth, and families since 1976.
RayCam’s vision is to be “not just a community centre, but the centre of a community”, which is grounded in the principles of place-based, inclusion, community engagement, reconciliation, and capacity building. RayCam aims to develop inclusive, just, and compassionate neighbourhoods that promote optimal growth and development of children, youth, families and communities.
This document was created to guide RayCam’s engagement in research and assist researchers develop new partnerships with RayCam. All research being proposed to be conducted at RayCam must be approved.
RayCam sees value in research as a powerful tool for advocacy, an effective strategy for evaluation of its programs and services, and an avenue for capacity building.
RayCam’s engagement in research is guided by its mission and goals. In most cases, RayCam prefers to partner with researchers at the development stage of the research project. When a research project is conducted at RayCam,
PARTNERSHIP
Researchers should build a working relationship with RayCam and community members.
GOVERNANCE
RayCam and community members should play a role in decisions about how the research will be conducted, including the engagement process, data collection, analysis, and how the findings will be interpreted, used, and shared.
ACCESS
RayCam and community members should be able to access the data and decide who else can access it.¹
PROTECTION
RayCam and community members have the right to confidentiality, including the protection of identifiable, de-identified, and anonymized data.
¹ RayCam’s approach is driven by the OCAP® principles (ownership, control, access, possession) developed by the First Nations Information Governance Centre for conducting research with First Nations communities. It is also influenced by other examples of ethical data governance in communities such as the Black Health Equity Working Group framework in Ontario. Please see the reference list for further reading.
RayCam Co-Operative Centre conducted an early childhood needs assessment for low income families in Strathcona. Thank you to our partners for their collaboration and the families who participated in this project. We look forward to continuing to make meaning of this data and engaging with the community to strengthen our programs for children and families.